Reminder: if you want to compete in this episode, you must be a GLA streamer and you should be able to stream to googout as well, as described in this blog post. Only video is needed, not audio. This won’t be the case for all episodes, but it will be the case for this one, OK?

Multi-person streams have become increasingly popular here as of late, so here is a guide on how to get set up. Generally, it’s a poor idea to just sit everyone in a VOIP program such as Mumble and leave them to watch the stream of your game on Twitch TV, because the Twitch stream will be 20-30 seconds behind you at all times (it wasn’t always like this, Twitch just decided to ruin their video streaming system one day).

Since then, most people will send their game video and audio through another program, with a lower latency, to their co-streamers. However, this can be quite finicky to set up. To save some heartbreak, I have prepared this guide.

Video

Video is quite easy to set up. For Max Hyperdrive, you will only need to do video.

Download Xsplit from https://www.xsplit.com. The trial version is completely sufficient for your needs. Xsplit will also require you to register for an account.

The deal is this: you will not stream anything with xsplit. You will stream with OBS, and you will use Xsplit’s virtual camera to pipe your screen to google plus hangouts.

Fire up google plus and start or enter your desired hangout. Google Plus’s UI is a complete mess, but generally there is a hangouts button somewhere on the right hand menu, and a start hangout button at the lower right. To access hangouts, you will regrettably also need to install the google hangouts plugin. Sorry.

At the top of the hangouts interface, there are options to configure your input and output devices. Select Xsplit’s virtual camera for your video.

Fire up Xsplit and OBS and start broadcasting your game in OBS. In xsplit, you need to have the correct screen region set, but program doesn’t actually need to start streaming, google hangouts simply takes the input from xsplit.

You can set up audio however you like. Some people prefer to talk over Google Hangouts, some prefer Mumble. If you want to broadcast game audio over Google Hangouts, it is recommended that you then us Mumble for the voices of you and your co-hosts. See the next section!

Audio

If you want your hangouts crew to be able to hear the game without hearing themselves, further jiggery-pokery is needed. It’s quite an involved process, here is a diagram of what you’re going to set up:

To pipe your audio correctly, you will need a copy of the software ‘virtual audio cable’. This lets you create ‘virtual audio cables’ and then link arbitrary audio devices and audio channels together in various ways. http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm

Bear in mind that the full version of Virtual Audio Cable costs 25 american moon monies. I do not condone piracy, but for factual completeness, I must mention that it’s also possible to pirate this software. While this guide does not cover GNU+Linux, this kind of functionality is actually built into PulseAudio. GNU+Linux is also free. I would recommend installing GNU+Linux instead of piracy.

The crux of what’s going to happen is this: you will create a Virtual Audio Cable. You will pipe the game sounds through this virtual audio cable. You will then pipe the Virtual Audio Cable to both the Google Hangout and to your speakers.

After you’ve installed VAC, open the VAC control panel and create a new audio cable by setting the number of cables to 1 (in driver parameters>cables, at the top-left of the VAC window)

Open the windows control panel and go to ‘sound’. Under the ‘recording’ tab, select Virtual Audio Cable line 1 (the cable you just created) and right-click on it, then click ‘properties’.

Under the ‘listen’ tab, check the box that says ‘listen to this device’, and set the ‘playback through this device’ dropdown to be your current headphones (if you’re using speakers you’re an idiot and I dislike you).

OK all of that, close that, and in the sound window, apply your settings.

Go to the playback tab. Find line 1, select it, and set it as your default playback device. Now all the audio on your PC is going to go through the virtual audio cable before reaching your speakers.

Now, all we have to do is make mumble ‘skip’ the Virtual Audio Cable and go straight to your speakers. In Mumble’s audio output menu (configure>settings>audio output) just make sure that the output device is set to your speakers\headphones, and not line 1.

In Google Hangouts, set your microphone to be line 1.

In OBS, your microphone should be your microphone and your speakers should be your speakers. In that case, everything is normal!

No audio is going through Xsplit, so leave that well alone and not touch it because it is dirty and tainted.

Hello. In streams for the last couple weeks, I’ve advertised that GWA will return tomorrow on the 18th. That won’t be happening now, I’ll be out of town for the rest of the week. GWA Season 4: Power Struggle will start on the 25th.

As the first season of Max Hyperdrive will prooobably be out by the end of this year, I thought I’d let everybody know what’s required of them if they want to appear on the show.

The format has changed drastically (for the better) but it has also added a certain amount of complexity.

To appear as a contestant in the first season, you must be able to stream on the GLA channel. Remember, streamer applications are always open. I’d rather people didn’t apply solely to appear on MOE, but I probably won’t make any such rule. This is because the Final Showdown now constitutes a downloadable challenge which the contestant must play live on stream.

This also means that (although it’s not 100% essential), it would be ideal for the contestants to be able to do group streams via google hangouts. Luckily, me and moogle (and by that, I mean moogle and moogle) have worked out a technique that is easy to set up and doesn’t have any issues with the quality of stream for the viewers, participants or streamer. The only caveat is that it requires two streaming programs to be open at once, as well as a copy of virtual audio cable. At some point I will make a quick howto post on this blog.

I will be bringing back the mental\puzzle type final showdowns as well (which everyone will be able to participate in) but not right now. It’s too much overhead and would delay the programme even more.

You will have the option of drawing your own character as well as using a premade one. Not only are drawing skills not required, they are actively discouraged. If your performance as a guest is entertaining, I might work out a way to incorporate you into the show as a recurring character. Not sure how that’s all going to work though, I haven’t actually animated anything yet.

Now, I have some opening sequence editing to do. CATCH YOU ON THE FLIPSIDE